Absolutely, romani. Its a level of low, but sadly not a new level of low. This, is also low. Reminds me of the old “if you don’t like it, lump it” crack:
. Hopefully jazzy’s history lesson will not fall on deaf ears (one can hope). Yes, maybe the truth does hurt. As you say, live with it.
I guess we should be grateful that the NRA is only representing the interests of gun sellers/manufacturers and not the makers of armored vehicles, rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles as well.
Because, you never know, someday, just in case, the civilian population might need more than AK-47s and high-capacity ammunition clips to fight off a rogue government, or an invading foreign power…or aliens…or the walking dead…or whatever.
It is ideas such as these that make it extremely difficult for gun control advocates to get the legislation they want. Why? Because once analyzed and thought through, these do nothing to reduce the numbers people say they are concerned about and this pairing idea is nothing but a policy-making non-sequitor.
Crime Reduction Measure?
Given that criminals do not give a hoot about laws, and most guns used in criminal offenses are obtained on the streets (just like illegal drugs), requiring “licensing/training/registering” requirements would do absolutely zilch to reduce the 15,000 homicides per year done by criminals and gang members and by people who fly the coop and shoot say a family member of friend during an argument.
And specifically addressing family members that shoot each other or someone in an argument, more people die in such situation from knives and blunt objects than guns, so unless you regulate those too, no appreciable reduction there either.
And, as for the subset of 8,000 young black men killed by guns in ghettoes and poor areas (representing over half of all annual homicides), “licensing/training/registering” do nothing for them. Nothing at all.
There is absolutely no evidence that law-abiding people with guns (CCPs or guns in their homes) raise the crime rate. In fact, initial analysis suggest the reverse occurs; cities, towns, and states with the highest percentage of guns in homes and on-person have continually decreasing crime rates.
Therefore, making law-abiding people jump through hoops to have a gun for personal and familial safety has either no effect on crime rate (gang violence etc.), and worse, would reduce guns in the hands of law-abiding people and increase crime rates because they can on longer effectively defend themselves.
Again, no one has answered how making a gun illegal without “licensing/training/registering” is going to stop the criminals and gang members who obtain guns on the street from actually getting guns?
Suicide Reduction Measure?
Given the fact that the overwhelming majority of people who commit suicide with guns have owned their guns for some time (often a long time) or uses a gun owned by another family member or someone they know blows a hole in this “licensing/training/registering” argument. People do not decide to commit suicide and then go buy a gun to do it. They use a gun they they have access to legally, for some time.
Therefore nothing in some extensive “licensing/training/registering” program is going to reduce suicides via gun. The only thing that would do that is to take all guns away from all people. And then even that will be short-lived as people, such as in Japan, would resort to different ways of committing suicide,
Japan has a much higher suicide rate than US and guns are something like 6th or 7th on the list of mechanism used. Do people actually think that Americans are too dumb to learn to how kill themselves by other methods, if they really want to kill themselves.
Overall Accident Reduction Measure?
Here is the problem with this idea - there is no evidence or even the suggestion that accidents involving firearms is the result of a lack of training. Accidents are accidents and they happen and they are not going to be eliminated in the least. It is all-made up that some government-mandated training would reduce accidents.
This silly argument is the same as telling me that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson would be better golfers if they had professional government training program in golf and not trained by their Dads. Same for the Williams’ sisters in tennis - parent trained and all at one point tops in the world at what they do. And Steph Curry trained by his dad to shoot basketballs…
Agreed that there are some parents who are not responsible as they should be, but applying that to all parents with guns and making all parents with guns go through hoops for the few errant ones is penalization and raising the cost of the overwhelming responsible to defend their families.
And most importantly, and the most obvious, “licensing/training/registering” is not going to make a generally irresponsible parent responsible. So no positive effect there at all.
Child Accident / Harm Reduction Measure?
See Accident Reduction Section above, as starting point.
I fully understand the heart tug of the 100 child deaths by gun accidents (both private and government agencies published numbers agree this is about right - actually, federal agency number is lower - around 65 kids per year - but let’s go with the higher number from private studies) and the 7,000 kids who visit the emergency room with non-fatal gun-related injuries as something people are focusing on, as a reason to over-regulate guns.
But, why not the same concern to having intrusive regulation on families re bicycles? Bicycle accidents are the cause of the death of one child every day in this country (350+ deaths) and are responsible for some non-fatal 250,000+ visits to the emergency room. That is over 3X the deaths caused by accidents with guns and 35X that of non-fatal injuries by guns.
Where is the “licensing/training/registering” program for all kids and families who buy a bike and government certification that they are operating their bikes properly? Why not saddle those families with that additional financial cost AND time to get a bike, as would need to go during government business hours to get this done? Or are these accidents deemed OK, but accidents with guns are not, even though bikes are far more deadly and injurious?
However, there is another is a vexing problem of gun control advocates in the area. If it is all about the kids, what about the kids who successfully defend themselves against intruders with guns? A search of the internet can find many examples, and who knows how many that are not recorded because the gun never had to be fired, but was brandished and that was good enough to save the kid in his / her home. Are these kids’ lives not as important?
I understand having accidents are tough to take, but to make it so that others instead are left defenseless to save a potential accident victims is just choosing who gets harmed, not reducing the overall harm and thus the number of children harmed overall stays the same or goes higher.
And what about the same for ATVs? Some 60+ kids die each year on ATVs and 25,000 go to the emergency room. Should these kids and families not be required to go through “licensing/training/registering” as well? ATVs are just as deadly for kids, as guns, and cause more non-fatal injury visits to the emergency room. Or are these deaths and injuries less important?
The list goes on as there are many other familial activities and child activities, which are far more deadly than guns, but somehow those law-abiding families are not being called on to have “licensing/training/registering” before those activities.
In short, many gun control advocates’ arguments are self-serving, and people see right through that.
Continuation of Post #902:
Societal Safety Measure?
Trying to force law-abiding gun owners, who passed all background checks etc., to for further “licensing/training/registering” of their guns changes nothing to help society. Additionally, none of government’s or anyone else’s business how many guns any law-abiding person has. Just like it is none of their business how many long bows and jim bowie knives they have.
The sticking point for the gun control advocates has always come down to “Why is it that law-abiding people are subject to such scrutiny, while, by definition, criminal and people who are intent on doing harm, are naturally exempt, as they do not buy their guns legally and do not subject themselves to any background checks at all?”
In every meeting when asked, gun control advocates have never provided an answer that made any sense, even to the policymakers who favor gun control. They resort to the Rorschach test answer, “We have to do something about the the gun violence and for the kids.” However, when asked in return “What do you suggest we do about the criminals actually pulling the trigger?” Crickets.
Nothing proposed would have stopped Dylan Roof or other mass shooters, as they were law-abiding when they bought their guns. A couple stole guns. What are you going to do then, apply some mind-reading test on people buying guns?
Why are not the gun control advocates promoting programs to license guns of the gangs in neighborhoods of Chicago and Camden, NJ? When asked, all one hears is crickets for it gets real tough for gun control advocates to explain that the first order of duty re guns is to learn and to regulate guns in the hands of law-abiding people and their homes. Huh? That is like trying to solve the drunk driving problem by first regulating non-drunk driving drivers and making non-drunk drinkers take breathalyzers before they can buy and drive a car.
How about leaving the law-abiding alone (they have proved to be law-abiding by passing a background check, sometimes multiple ones) and get to solving the real problem. And if someone does buy a gun lawfully and then used it to commit a crime /murder, then do what would be done if they used a knife or bat, prosecute.
Oh this is ridiculous. Comparing the # of kids bicycle accidents fails to take into consideration the # of bicycles in use by children compared to the number of injuries. This has nothing to do with the illegal and dangerous access to handguns by minors. Completely absurd.
Yes, bicycle riders should wear helmets and other protective gear. So too should there be additional protections for weapons in the home. The # of bicycles in use by kids should be high. The # of guns in use by kids should be low. Very low. As in zero low.
Bicycles are intended to be used by kids. And with sports activities comes some accidents, unfortunately. Guns are not intended to be used by kids. The # of accidents should be zero.
And this passes as logic and analytical thinking?
Hum…if a gun is unwanted, it is not being used; if a gun is very old, it is also not being used; and, if a gun is defective, it is also not being used - for these reasons, the guns are being turned in during buyback programs because the money is more useful than the unused guns.
Therefore, if the guns are not being used (fired), they are, by definition, not harming anyone, and thus the claim cannot be made they are endangering anyone. It therefore follows the guns are not saving any lives by being unused.
For this logic to work, it would be the same as telling me my car is a killing machine because it is sitting unused in my garage for 6 years, and because I could use to run over people, then my scraping it is the equivalent of saving lives, even though it is a show car, and I do not drive it.
I guess if you are a gun control nut this logic makes sense to you for a gun, but not for a car that can go 200+ mph, and not for my seriously deadly crossbow, which is great for getting awesome deer meat
Here we go again… bikes are dangerous, so we should leave guns alone. Bikes aren’t mass murder weapons. I can’t take a bike to a school and kill 20 six year olds, or three guys I just got got into a fight with.
Also, just because a gun is home unused does not mean a kid can’t find it, load it if necessary, and use it accidentally or on purpose.
Self serving, how?
Trying to prevent needless gun deaths to any extent serves the people whose lives are spared.
Self serving is the NRA’s NO NO NO response to virtually EVERY attempt to make gun ownership safer no matter what it is. Self serving because they campaign and raise money off any attempt at tightening gun laws and because they serve a different master than the average American. Dead kids are not their concern. They serve the gun sellers and manufacturers.
Self serving is this:
…
The whole thing is here:
http://archive.org/stream/NationalRifleAssociation2010IrsForm990/2010_NRA_IRS990#page/n0/mode/2up
Let’s not forget that Wayne Lapierre said so many obnoxious things that George H.W. Bush resigned as a lifetime member of the NRA.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. It is perfectly possible for a gun owner to be “law-abiding” right up to the point where he or she isn’t. It’s not a binary thing. People who improperly store guns allowing kids to gain access to them may have been law abiding and may still be considered law abiding after the fact because that isn’t considered criminal in most places. The frat bro who shot a rival frat bro was likely law abiding right up to the point where he murdered someone. I am so tired of that marketing semantics narrative.
“Given that criminals do not give a hoot about laws”
I sometimes wonder why people who make this argument against gun laws – endlessly – never seem to apply its implications to all the other criminal laws out there, and advocate for their abolition as well. And especially why it’s often the exact same people who fulminate against gun laws as useless, while simultaneously trying to pass ever more restrictive laws against abortion.
Criminals don’t give a hoot about laws, but law abiding people do. If we had laws that required a license to have a gun, and training and recertification to get the license, and liability insurance, and requirements that a gun be locked up or on the owner’s person, then law-abiding people would obey those laws, because they’re law-abiding. And therefore, some of them would get the required license and gun safe, and others would decide it wasn’t worth the hassle and the insurance cost, and they’d turn in their guns to buyback.
Saying that criminals don’t care about laws, and will buy guns illegally, misses the point. Right now, they don’t have to buy guns illegally! They can buy the guns from law-abiding people, because it’s not illegal to sell a gun privately in many areas of the country. Right now, straw buyers can and do load up on guns, and then sell them legally to criminals. If private sales were illegal, that would reduce the supply of guns available to criminals, because the criminals wouldn’t be able to buy guns from law-abiding people.
And moreover, if people were required to lock up their guns instead of leaving them irresponsibly in their bedside tables, available to other family members and visitors, then someone other than the gun owner who wanted to commit suicide wouldn’t be able to do it with one of those guns.
Awc says that Americans are smart enough to kill themselves using other means. Yeah, and they’re also smart enough to realize, after a cooling off period as they contemplate other, more difficult means of death, that maybe dying isn’t such a good idea anyway. The evidence is overwhelming that having a gun readily available makes suicide attempts both more likely to happen and more likely to be deadly.
Of course he had a gun! He was, after all, a black male in a car with three other black males (that’s the way they roll, don’t ya know. What’s a drive by without a car full of them?). As to what exactly happened to that gun, well, he must have shoved it in his pocket, where it magically became one of those inordinately large and potent sex organs all black men are rumored to have…
Which is why those of us who don’t propose to throw up our hands and declare all attempts to implement better gun laws as futile, believe a multi-pronged strategy is the way to greatly reduce gun violence in America. The decision to own a firearm should be tantamount to legally declaring that one is willing to be fully culpable in the misuse of that weapon, meaning, you can’t just (oops!) “loose track” of that weapon, and then when it’s used to commit a crime say, “someone must have stolen it/I lost it/ I can’t remember where and when I last had it in my possession”. You should legally be required to always know where your weapon is located, and who might be possession of it. You should be required by law to immediately report its theft or loss. All firearms should be legally registered as being the property of specific entities or persons, and the same should be financially liable for their misuse. When push comes to shove, I believe far fewer people are as invested in their “2nd Amendment right” as they are in their wallets. I don’t believe private sales ought to be illegal. But I do think private sales should be tightly regulated so as to stem the pipeline of legally purchased guns to criminals.
OK, private sales shouldn’t be illegal, but private buyers should be required to pass background checks, licensing and so forth, just like buyers from dealers.
Since this thread jumped the shark a long time ago, and has long since stopped being about the Oregon shooting, thought I’d mention that I talked about it with DH, who was in ROTC in college. The rifles they trained with were significantly modified (fired only 22 caliber ammo), and when marching with them the firing pins were removed and they were not loaded.When not in use they were locked up tight and no one was allowed to access them. If the ROTC members are so careful with weapons, with trained adults, seems that should set an example for others.
Head of American Psychiatric Association:
^ Sorry, the actual link for the APA president is http://psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2015/10/responsible-gun-laws-are-a-public-health-necessity
So we have streets full of armed criminals who don’t care about laws. No legal measures would impact them because, of course, they are criminals and don’t care about laws. So where do they get their guns? The stock answer seems to be that they buy them on the street from other criminals. Ok . . . where do they come from? Are they purchased by strawman buyers and sold on the street? A good number of them are stolen from those responsible, law-abiding gun owners who left them in a car or in an obvious storage place in their home or were dispossessed of them in a personal robbery. The basics of economics tell us that the more plentiful and easily obtained these weapons are the cheaper they will be. Maybe that’s how NOLA has 15 year olds riding around on bicycles committing armed robbery.
http://www.fox8live.com/story/24721323/half-dozen-guns-stolen-from-walmart
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/01/suspect_sold_stolen_jpso_assau.html
note where is says that 156 guns were stolen from vehicles in NOLA between January and October in this 2012 article
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/11/how_liable_is_the_owner_of_a_s.html
I could go on and on with these links but the common theme is that the guns were stolen from unlocked cars, homes and in one case a Walmart. If only gun owners and dealers were more responsible . . .
Firearms are also counterfeited outside the US and smuggled in.
“Firearms are also counterfeited outside the US and smuggled in.”
So that means we shouldn’t do anything about procuring illegals guns that come from here?